A surge in the number of people receiving disability benefits in Kentucky is partly due to the state’s aging baby boomer population and other demographic trends, according to a left-leaning think tank.

Last week, state officials released a report documenting the swell of Kentuckians receiving disability payments through social security. The study accused the Social Security Administration of boosting enrollment in the disability insurance program through lax enrollment policies.

But Dustin Pugel, a research and policy associate with the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy, said the increase is due to natural population changes.

“This is not a case of just an enormous amount of energy being put into scamming the system or actors actively trying to create a large group of dependent Kentuckians,” Pugel said.

According to the report released by Disability Determination Services — a state agency that decides if Kentuckians are eligible for certain state and federal benefits — Kentucky’s population grew by 21 percent between 1980 and 2015 while disability rolls grew 249 percent over the same time period.

In 2015, 11.2 percent of Kentuckians received some form of disability payment.

The number of Kentuckians who are between 50 and 64 years old increased 79 percent between 1990 and 2016. And that same group’s share of the total state population has increased as well — from 13.6 percent of Kentuckians in 1990 to 20.2 percent in 2016.

“It’s really just the fact that older people tend to be disabled more often and there are more people in that age category than there have ever been before,” Pugel said.

The state’s report argued that the federal government needs to reform the Social Security Disability Insurance program. Officials proposed tightening the eligibility and re-enrollment process and removing “non-severe conditions” from the list of eligible disabilities.

The report found Kentuckians in the eastern part of the state were the most likely to receive benefits — in 2015, the top counties were Wolfe, Owsley, Breathitt, Clay, Magoffin, Floyd, Lee, Leslie, Martin, Harlan, Perry and Bell.

In April 2018, Medicare officials will begin sending out new health insurance cards that no longer include enrollees’ social security numbers.

The change is a big win for anti-fraud advocates. But there’s a catch. Nancy Gilmer Moore, with the Indiana Association of Area Agencies on Aging, said the transition to new cards provides an opportunity for scam artists to call Medicare enrollees and try to get them to verify their social security numbers over the phone.

She said Medicare will never call or email an enrollee. They only use mail to communicate changes.

“Be wary of anyone calling to say we need to confirm your number because of all the changes,” Moore said. “Opportunists take advantage in times of confusion.”

Jessica Miller, outreach coordinator with Kentucky Senior Medicare Patrol, said it took a while for Congress to allocate the money for the new cards. With almost a million Medicare enrollees in Kentucky alone, it’s a heavy lift. And like many people, Medicare recipients often carry their insurance cards in their wallets.

That habit, said Miller, puts people at risk for identity theft.

“It’s a habit for people to carry them around for fear of any kind of medical emergency, but it’s actually really important to protect that information,” she said.

“Social security numbers are really specific to each individual person. So once someone gets hold of that information, they really can do anything with it. It can be troublesome for your finances.”

Miller also said to look out for fake websites that can look legitimate and to be protective of personal information when talking on the phone.

“Know who you’re talking to,” she said. “If it’s someone that’s asking for your social security number, you want to know who that person is. So even if the phone says it’s from someone who you trust, you should probably call back on the number you know.”

The new cards will be distributed between April 2018 to April 2019. The old Medicare cards will stop working beginning in 2020.

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83386http://wfpl.org/medicare-enrollees-receive-new-health-insurance-cards/Trump On GOP Failures: ‘I’m Not Going To Blame Myself, I’ll Be Honest’http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/893wfplnews/~3/T8BXx2yQXDc/
Mon, 16 Oct 2017 20:10:14 +0000http://wfpl.org?p=83383&preview=true&preview_id=83383The president says don't blame him for not much getting through Congress. Blame GOP members, who should be "ashamed" of themselves, Trump said Monday.

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Updated at 2:20 p.m. ET

Not much of significance has gotten through this Congress, despite the House, Senate and White House all being controlled by the same party — Republicans.

President Trump says, don’t blame him.

“We’re not getting the job done. And I’m not going to blame myself, I’ll be honest,” Trump said during short remarks in a Cabinet meeting.

He then shifted away from “we” to “they.”

“They’re not getting the job done,” the president said of Congress.

It’s a continued attempt by Trump to draw a line between him and Republicans in Congress. It’s something that has irritated Republicans, who feel the president hasn’t shown the rigor to understand the details of legislation to adequately sell it.

Trump was asked about his former chief strategist Steve Bannon’s efforts to put up primary challenges to establishment Republicans in Congress. Trump said he understands it and seemed supportive.

“And I can understand where Steve Bannon is coming from,” Trump said, “and I can understand, to be honest with you … I can understand where a lot of people are coming from, because I’m not happy about it. And a lot of people aren’t happy about it.”

“Up on Capitol Hill, it’s like the Ides of March,” Bannon told the Values Voter Summit. “They’re just looking to find out who is going to be Brutus to your Julius Caesar. We’ve cut your oxygen off, Mitch.”

Later Monday, Trump tried to make a show of unity with McConnell, taking to the Rose Garden of the White House for a joint appearance.

“We’ve been friends for a long time,” Trump stressed, adding, “We’re probably now, despite what we read, closer than ever before.”

McConnell said, as Trump looked on, “We have the same agenda.”

The GOP Senate leader also used the word “friends” and noted they “talk frequently.”

There has been reporting that McConnell and Trump don’t see eye to eye, personally or professionally. They are very different men — Trump is showy and bombastic; McConnell is reserved and likes to work behind the scenes.

But McConnell claimed, “Contrary to what some of you may have reported, we’re together totally on this agenda to move America forward.”

One of Bannon’s requirements to back candidates is that they vote against McConnell as GOP leader.

“It’s not my war,” Bannon added, “this is our war, and y’all didn’t start it, the establishment started it. … Right now, it’s a season of war against a GOP establishment.”

Steven Law, president of the Senate Leadership Fund, a McConnell-aligned superPAC, told NPR Monday that he is not concerned about Bannon’s threats.

“I think this is somebody who talks big, but at the end of the day, I just don’t see it there,” Law told David Greene on NPR’s Morning Edition. “The only thing that’s a concern for us is that we are going to have to divert some resources that we’d otherwise spend beating Democrats to make sure that we don’t nominate candidates who would lose general elections the way they did in 2010 and 2012 before we got involved.”

In those two cycles, five Tea Party challengers won Republican primaries and went on to lose to Democrats in general elections. In 2014, McConnell vowed to crush insurgent primary challengers — and did so. But in the age of Trump, the outsiders hope to be newly ascendant.

“The goal here is to win elections in November,” McConnell said, pointing out that the candidates in 2010 and 2012 “didn’t appeal to a broader electorate.”

“Winners make policy and losers go home,” McConnell added.

Law told NPR that the problem for the party goes beyond Bannon. “At the end of the day,” Law said, “I think our problem right now is not a Steve Bannon problem. It’s a product problem.”

The man whose face would be on the label of that product is the president. But Trump has tried to insulate his brand by taking credit for executive actions while attempting to separate himself from congressional failures.

And Trump did not wave Bannon off — even when given a second chance to do so in the Cabinet meeting.

“There are some Republicans frankly that should be ashamed of themselves,” Trump said.

He added that “most of them” are “really really great people. … So I can understand fully how Steve Bannon feels.”

While standing next to McConnell, Trump added, “Steve is doing what Steve thinks is the right thing.”

He seemed to soften his earlier remarks, saying it’s possible that “some of the people maybe we talk him out of that.”

Trump added that “with the exception of a very small few,” he has a “great relationship” with many congressional Republicans.

“I like and respect most of them,” he said. He stressed: “The Republican Party is very, very unified.”

Copyright 2017 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

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83383http://wfpl.org/trump-on-gop-failures-im-not-going-to-blame-myself-ill-be-honest/Artist With Big Local Presence Picked To Paint President Obama’s Official Portraithttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/893wfplnews/~3/QAJrXK3f264/
Mon, 16 Oct 2017 18:55:21 +0000http://wfpl.org/?p=8337521c Museum Hotels has five works by artist Kehinde Wiley in its permanent collection. Two are on-view in Louisville right now as part of “Pop Stars.”

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On Friday, the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery announced that it has commissioned the museum’s official portraits of former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama.

Artist Amy Sherald has been chosen to paint Mrs. Obama, while the portrait of President Obama will be created by Kehinde Wiley — an artist who has a sizeable local presence.

According to 21c’s chief curator Alice Gray Stites, the museum has five works by Wiley in its permanent collection — two of which are on-view in Louisville right now as part of “Pop Stars,” and one that is included in a current exhibition at 21c Lexington.

“His portraits are vibrant, vividly-colored renditions of African-American men and women, presented often larger than life-size and often in the guise of figures from 18th and 19th century art history,” Gray Stites says.

But Gray Stites says Wiley’s work is not just conceptually beautiful.

“He has transformed, in a sense, portraiture in the 21st century from being a practice that is focused upon highlighting someone’s likeness or their role in politics in society, to making portraiture a platform for examining a wide-range contemporary issues and conditions,” Gray Stites says.

Wiley’s work in the past has dealt with issues like representation of people of color in art history and how media depictions differ across race.

“He is probably one of the most influential American painters today,” Gray Stites says. “The interesting thing and the inspiring thing about [the Obamas] making that choice is that they are not only choosing great figurative painters, but they are choosing great American artists.”

Barack Obama’s presidential portrait will be unveiled at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C. in early 2018.

Pitino’s attorney, Steve Pence, said that his client “could not have known” about bribery and other activities alleged in the federal investigation.

Interim school President Greg Postel said the board was not swayed by the argument.

“We listened carefully to what they said, we read carefully everything they gave us,” Postel said. “At the end of the conversation, we felt that our initial decision to begin the process of termination for cause was still in the best interests of the university.”

Later this week, the U of L board of trustees is expected to take up the job status of athletic director Tom Jurich, who was also placed on administrative leave when the federal recruiting complaint was made public.

President Trump has recently taken a series of what appear to be bold executive actions to reverse Obama-era policies: declining to re-certify the Iran nuclear deal, halting subsidy payments to insurance companies and setting an expiration date for the DACA immigration program. But, in so doing, he’s dumping thorny problems on a GOP-controlled Congress already struggling to rack up significant legislative accomplishments.

This did not go unnoticed by one of the top Democrats in Congress. Trump “throws destructive bones to his base then tells Congress to fix it: Iran, Health care, Puerto Rico,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., tweeted Saturday.

While Trump said Friday that Iran had violated “the spirit” of the 2015 nuclear deal, he didn’t pull out of the multi-nation agreement, at least not yet. Instead, he opened the door for congressional action — and that’s exactly what he’s asking for.

“I am directing my administration to work closely with Congress and our allies to address the deal’s many serious flaws so that the Iranian regime can never threaten the world with nuclear weapons,” Trump said.

And with that Trump dumped another item on Congress’ already very full plate.

Just the night before he had announced another decision that could well require Congress to step in: halting cost-sharing subsidy payments to insurance companies. Those payments were designed to keep premiums down for low-income consumers, but Trump said they are illegal and just a gift to insurance companies.

Democrats and moderate Republicans including Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida expressed dismay at the move. Both Dent and Ros-Lehtinen have already announced they do not intend to run for re-election next year.

Cutting health care subsidies will mean more uninsured in my district. @potus promised more access, affordable coverage. This does opposite.

“We at the end of the day will own this. We, the Republican Party, will own this,” Dent said in an interview on CNN. “I believe his action will force us to enter into some kind of a bipartisan agreement on the cost-sharing reduction payments” to stabilize the insurance markets.

Trump said stopping the payments was part of an effort to undo the Affordable Care Act.

“One by one it’s going come down, and we’re going to have great health care in our country,” Trump said in a speech at the Values Voter Summit on Friday. “We are going to have great health care in our country. We are taking a little different route than I had hoped because getting Congress — they forgot what their pledges were.”

Still, he said he hoped this would prompt Congress to take bipartisan action to repeal and replace Obamacare. He said Friday he wants Democrats to come to him. They aren’t. And even when it comes to Republicans, it’s not clear the president and the various factions in Congress are even remotely on the same page about how to proceed.

And that’s not the only item the president wants Congress to act on. There’s also the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program for undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children. When Trump announced he would put a six-month expiration date on the program, he tweeted, “Congress, get ready to do your job – DACA!”

Early on, it looked like he had reached the broad outline of an agreement with Democratic leaders in Congress, only to then release a list of hard-line demands that Democrats — and even many Republicans — won’t support.

“What I want is tremendous border regulation. I want the wall. And we’re going to get other things,” Trump told Sean Hannity on Fox News. “And we’re going to see if we’re going to work something out. Now whether or not we do, I don’t know. But it would be wonderful to solve the DACA problem.”

When Trump says “we” as he discusses DACA, Iran and health care, he mostly means “them.” Congress will have to do all the heavy lifting. And none of this will be easy for a GOP-controlled Congress (narrowly in the Senate) that is far from unanimity on any of these matters.

“Every time you buck some issue over to their plate, you blow the place up,” said Sarah Binder, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who specializes in Congress. “And Congress is not a well-oiled machine, so disrupting the agenda and putting more things on their lap — issues which are really wedge issues within the Republican Party … it’s almost mind-boggling to me that a president who doesn’t see himself as part of the party in Congress puts them back in that situation.”

And all of these items come on top of what was supposed to be the top priority for congressional Republicans this fall: passing a tax system overhaul. In the midst of everything else, Trump has been campaigning for tax cuts and other changes to the tax code. He suggested maybe it could be a “Christmas gift” to Americans.

A more likely Christmas gift could well be a shutdown showdown over must-pass government funding legislation. The current funding expires Dec. 8, and at least some of these issues could get wrapped up in negotiations.

On Friday, Schumer did express optimism that at least the health care subsidies could pass that way.

“I think we’re going to have a very good opportunity in the omnibus to get this done in a bipartisan way, if we can’t get it done sooner,” he said.

Copyright 2017 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

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83371http://wfpl.org/trumps-executive-actions-may-mean-more-headaches-for-struggling-congress/For Many Visitors, ‘Southern Accent’ Prompted A Perspective Shifthttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/893wfplnews/~3/ixNze6-Ixeg/
Mon, 16 Oct 2017 11:59:05 +0000http://wfpl.org/?p=83365The exhibition surprised many visitors—they went in with one idea of the South and, while looking at the artwork, their perspective shifted in some way.

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On Friday, the Speed Art Museum hosted a series of public discussions led by prominent artists, academics and historians about how we commemorate the South’s complex history. The event was called “Southern Symbols.”

But some of the most interesting conversations of the day actually took place outside the auditorium — on a bench found on the third floor of the museum, located at the exit of “Southern Accent.”

“Southern Accent” is a special exhibition at the museum that takes a hard look at the region’s social, political and cultural landscapes, resulting in what museum officials say is the institution’s biggest and most ambitious contemporary art exhibition to date.

It’s an exhibition that surprised many visitors—they went in with one idea of what the South is and, while looking at the artwork, their perspective shifted in some way. You can listen to some visitors’ impressions of the collection in the audio player above.

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83365http://wfpl.org/for-many-visitors-southern-accent-prompted-a-perspective-shift/Funding For The Butchertown Soccer Stadium, Explainedhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/893wfplnews/~3/p52CoEquUlQ/
Mon, 16 Oct 2017 11:00:54 +0000http://wfpl.org/?p=83335Metro Council will vote on whether to issue $30 million in municipal bonds to buy land for the stadium. Here's what that means -- and why you should care.

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Louisville Metro Council is expected to vote next week on whether to issue $30 million in municipal bonds to buy 40 acres of land in the city’s Butchertown neighborhood.

The plan is for the city to buy the land, then give it to the Louisville City Football Club. The pro soccer team would build a $50 million stadium, as well as develop the remaining parcels with retail and hotels. The entire project is expected to cost $200 million.

What is a municipal bond?

There are a few ways a city can raise money to pay for capital projects.

One way is a one-time tax increase, but this is problematic. It creates an equity problem, and also can be politically unpopular because residents today are paying for a project that future residents would benefit from without paying the initial tax.

Instead, many cities use municipal bonds for major projects.

“A bond is a form of debt; an IOU, a loan,” said Michael Anthony Campbell, an assistant professor at Tennessee State University. “It has some degree of interest associated with it.”

Municipal bonds are used to raise money for city projects like water treatment facilities, jails, schools or bridges. The city borrows the money from investors and promises to pay those investors back over time with interest.

“The overwhelming majority, maybe not in raw dollars, but the number of municipal bonds being issued are for public good issues,” Campbell said. “Local governments are issuing bonds all the time for small, medium, large projects that fall under the classification of the much more traditional public good.”

Municipal bonds are classified into two types: revenue bonds and general obligation bonds. Revenue bonds guarantee investors will get their money back through revenue generated from a project. General obligation bonds guarantee investors will get their money back through the city’s power to tax. The measure being considered to buy the land for Louisville’s soccer stadium would be a general obligation bond.

Why should I care?

Because your tax dollars will ultimately be used to pay off the bonds.

Janet Kelly, executive director of the Urban Studies Institute at the University of Louisville said in Louisville, the main taxes that could potentially be raised to pay off bonds are property and occupational — or payroll — taxes.

And in some cases, economic studies on sports arenas can overestimate the benefit to the city and public, including overstating the number of jobs that would be created or retail sales that would be generated.

The city says having the stadium is a key investment that will allow Louisville to compete for a Major League Soccer franchise. Other advantages, the city says, include more than 1,400 construction jobs as well as more than 1,700 jobs after the project’s completion.

So what are we really talking about when we talk about bonds?

“I think part of the underlying discussion here is what do we want our government spending money on,” Campbell said.

The proposed development uses public dollars for private investment, which is different from more straight-forward bonds that are used for infrastructure or school projects.

Some believe that the use of public dollars to stimulate the private sector benefits everyone; it’s a public good.

Proponents of the project say the initial stadium development will spur others in the area, like retail, restaurants and hotels. The city says the development would also get rid of a brownfield and bring more people to the Butchertown neighborhood, as well as nearby Big Four Bridge and the soon-to-be-built Botanical Gardens. There’s also an intangible benefit in appeasing a sports team: civic pride.

But others believe that in similar situations, cities and taxpayers often never really get those initial investments back. And they say those tax dollars could be put to better use.

“There’s so many things we need in our cities besides stadiums,” said Art Rolnick, senior fellow at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota. “We got limited dollars; you can only tax so much…and you have to ask what’s the best public investment.”

Rolnick said he thinks money could be better used for basics like roads, lighting, health and education.

“That’s what makes great cities and great economies,” he said. “Get the public goods right.”

How could this deal go wrong?

The deal presented to Louisville’s Metro Council lays out the terms: Louisville Metro Government, with the help of $30 million in bonds, will buy the land in Butchertown and make some improvements. The soccer team, Louisville City Football Club, would be responsible for the cost of building the 10,000-seat stadium. The soccer club would also pay $14.5 million back to the city over 20 years for the cost of the land. Louisville Metro won’t own the stadium.

The city says the amount of public money in the deal is capped at $30 million — Louisville City FC will be responsible for any cost overruns. And if the team doesn’t end up building a stadium, it can either buy the land from Louisville, or the city can seek other development opportunities.

But Janet Kelly of U of L’s Urban Studies Institute said one possible outcome is that the stadium is built — but it doesn’t generate the expected economic boom for the area.

“We could be sitting on a piece of land with a soccer stadium on it that is underutilized and we’re pretty much stuck with it because it would be very difficult to transition that to another more effective use,” she said.

There’s also the possibility that Louisville gets its professional soccer stadium, but doesn’t get a bid to join the major leagues. There are other cities, such as San Antonio and Cincinnati, that are better positioned to snag a professional team. It’s also an unknown if soccer will be popular enough in the coming decades to bank on its future, or whether the team will even stay in Louisville.

Whether you love sports, hate sports or are indifferent, Louisville taxpayers would ultimately be responsible for paying for the initial investment in this proposed Butchertown development. Kelly said this is why the public has a right to review the city’s investment of the land for the soccer stadium — because it is ultimately the public that would be responsible for future payments.

Disclosure: Louisville City FC is privately owned by 47 investors. Two of those, Gill Holland and José Donis, are Louisville Public Media board members.

This post has been updated to accurately reflect the number of acres included in the proposal. The stadium will be on 15 acres; the remaining are for additional development.

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83335http://wfpl.org/funding-butchertown-soccer-stadium-explained/Trying Times For Transit: Rural Systems Face Flat Funding, Rising Demandhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/893wfplnews/~3/kpjUnZo-WzQ/
Mon, 16 Oct 2017 10:00:54 +0000http://wfpl.org?p=83352&preview=true&preview_id=83352A new report finds that demand for transit in rural areas is climbing faster than in cities. But spending on rural transit is not keeping pace with demand.

Daulton is 95 years old and has been riding the public transit system in Somerset, Kentucky, for about 15 years. Daulton said her daughter would like for her to move closer to Bowling Green, but Daulton likes her community and has no intention of leaving.

“I want to stay here. I want to be in my own home, if I can, as long as I live,” Daulton said.

Daulton is just one of many seniors in small towns and rural areas who want to age in place and remain connected to their community. Access to transit helps make that possible. But the RTEC is not just the only transit system in Somerset, it’s the only one for the 12 surrounding counties.

Mary Denny has been driving for RTEC for 5 years. She said many people in her community would be stranded or home bound without the service, not just seniors.

“It doesn’t just pertain to just elderly. We have anywhere from young individuals that’s struggling, low income, that’s struggling to make ends meet that we’re able to help and assist,” Denny said.

Compared to national averages, the Ohio Valley has a higher percentage of senior citizens, people with disabilities, and people living on low incomes — all groups likely to depend on transit. And a great number of them live in rural areas and small towns. Public transportation can make it possible to keep a job, reach a doctor, or just get your hair done. But transit experts in the region worry that funding is not keeping pace with demand.

Falling Behind

Juva Barber is the Executive Director of Kentuckians for Better Transportation, a statewide association advocating for all modes of transportation. Barber said in 2020 Kentucky will need $10 million from the general fund just to keep services as they are now, not including any improvements.

Kentuckians for Better Transportation

Juva Barber of Kentuckians for Better Transportation.

“We have to do something because if we don’t do something we fall farther and farther behind.” Barber said, adding that the effects can be felt far beyond just those who ride the bus.

“When you’re looking for a workforce, if that workforce can’t get there that puts you further down on the list when it comes to site selection so that impacts economic development,” she said.

Barber said there needs to be increased investment in infrastructure. No pothole will repair itself and no bus will avoid a trip to the maintenance garage.

Charles Rutkowski is with Community Transportation Association of America, a national organization that works with rural transit systems. He said every patient, customer and student represents income, revenue, and economic development for that health care institution or college. He adds for every $1 invested in transit there’s a benefit of $3.50 to that community.

“It provides jobs on a very basic level. It provides jobs for bus drivers, bus mechanics, dispatchers, schedulers, managers etc.,” Rutkowski said. “But it also transports a lot of local folks to jobs. And some of those individuals probably could not access those jobs were it not for the existence of public transit.”

Rutkowski said providing access to public transportation helps some lower income individuals break out of the cycle of poverty. He said it also enables seniors such as Thelma Daulton to live in their own homes and retain their independence, which often costs less than an assisted living facility.

Rural Challenges

The APTA found that while rural population is declining, ridership in rural areas has increased over the past 8 years. In fact, rural ridership grew far faster than did public transit demand in cities (when measured on a per capita basis).

The rural demand is largely due to older residents, people living on low incomes, and people with disabilities. Older folks make up a larger portion of rural communities than in urban areas, and rural poverty rates are higher than urban poverty rates across the country. That difference is especially high in the south.

The report includes a map showing the convergence of all three of these factors in the Ohio Valley region. Kentucky, West Virginia, and southeastern Ohio have high percentages of seniors who are both underprivileged and living with a disability. In many counties in the region 15 percent or more of the population fits this description. The U.S. average is about 10 percent.

And yet, the APTA found that per-capita spending on rural public transit spending is lower than in urban areas.

‘Homebound without us’

Kirt Conrad is the CEO of Stark Area Regional Transit Authority in Canton, Ohio. He said the state has supported the public transit system but the needs are outgrowing what has historically been provided.

“Every two years we have to go back to the general assembly and set those funding marks. We have no guaranteed funding sources for transit at the state level,” Conrad said.

Conrad said lower income people who rely on public transit often have no slack resources, and if they’re relying on transit services to get them to work the service has to be reliable. Conrad said they also transport about 170,000 people a year who qualify for public assistance under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

“We go to their house and take them to either work, school, or the doctor’s appointment. Without us those 170,000 people would be homebound,” Conrad said.

‘Opens your eyes’

Bowling Green, Kentucky, resident Scott Henry never expected to need a service like that.

“Being a healthy person all my life I never ever thought I’d be in a situation where I’d have to count on para-transit transportation to get back and forth to work every day,” Henry said.

But about a year ago Henry’s knee collapsed, became infected and he wasn’t able to get a knee replacement. He’s been unable to drive since.

“It opens your eyes if you don’t have something like that. You can’t do your job, you can’t go to the doctor, you can’t get groceries,” Henry said. “You can’t do anything and living alone I had no one to help me.”

Henry said arranging private transportation can cost about $200 a day. He’s had to cancel doctor’s appointments and even surgeries because he couldn’t get a vehicle to the hospital. Then he learned he was in the right area to use the city’s transit, BG Go. That gave him some motivation.

“So when I got that spark then it was like, I was going to do this today, I was going to do that today. I was going to get up today. I was going to do this by myself today,” he said. “I was going to get dressed like I was going to work today, and so that really did it. Without this I couldn’t be here today.”

Symbols of the Confederacy—from monuments to the flag—have sparked protests and civil unrest for decades. But in recent months, that has intensified.

Here in Louisville, debate has centered on whether to remove a Confederate statue in the affluent Cherokee Triangle neighborhood.

At the same time, a special exhibition at the Speed Art Museum has had its run. “Southern Accent” is a collection that seeks to address the South’s complex racial and cultural history.

As part of the exhibition, textile artist Sonya Clark spent several hours on Saturday pulling apart a Confederate battle flag, thread-by-thread. The performance piece is called “Unraveling.”

Visitors were asked to participate and, as I found out, many had their own reasons for unraveling. You can listen to some of them in the audio player above.

WFPL’s Roxanne Scott contributed to this report.

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83362http://wfpl.org/at-the-speed-art-museum-visitors-had-personal-reasons-for-unraveling/Strange Fruit: What It Means To Be Out In 2017http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/893wfplnews/~3/02DfhIr7eV8/
Sun, 15 Oct 2017 11:00:53 +0000http://wfpl.org/?p=83349October 11 was National Coming Out Day, so this week we talk about what it means to be out -- for queer folks, trans folks, and especially people of color.

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Coming out isn’t what it used to be. These days, even the most sheltered people generally have at least some basic understanding of what it means to be gay.

But for people living in certain communities, in certain countries, and with certain identities, coming out can still be dangerous — or even life-threatening.

And, of course, no one just comes out once. In many ways, we’re all coming out all the time.

October 11 was National Coming Out Day, so in this week’s episode, we talk about what it means to be out — for queer folks, trans folks, and especially people of color. Our guest is Aaron Weathers, who was on our very first episode in 2012, when we talked about coming out to our mamas.

Listen in the player above and subscribe to Strange Fruit wherever you get your podcasts.

Back in March, after the first Republican legislative failure to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act during the Trump presidency, President Trump went before cameras in the Oval Office and revealed some of his thinking when it came to the politics of health care.

“I’ve been saying for the last year and a half that the best thing we can do politically speaking is let Obamacare explode,” Trump said. “It is exploding right now.”

Experts said the ACA wasn’t “exploding,” but that it needed fixes to help incentivize insurers to stay in marketplaces.

But now, six months later, Obamacare may actually be on the road to “exploding” – catalyzed by an accelerant poured over it by President Trump. The moves he’s taken risk blowing up the individual markets by making insurance too expensive for lower- and middle-class families. Trump’s actions, however, could backfire politically, threatening to shift blame for the health care act’s shortcomings from Obama and Democrats to Trump and Republicans.

That’s something Republicans have feared and now believe will happen.

“If people lose their cost-sharing reduction payments — their subsidies — it’s going to be pretty hard to blame a former president — Barack Obama — for that,” moderate Republican Rep. Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania told NPR’s All Things Considered on Friday. “We Republicans control the House and the Senate and the White House. If there are problems, we will likely own them. It’s pretty hard to say that the former president is somehow going to be able to accept all the blame. He’s out of the game right now.”

At issue is the president’s decision to end subsidies that help offset the cost of insurance for anyone making up to three times the federal poverty level — that’s a yearly household income of $97,000 for a family of four.

Trump’s action could mean premium increases of 20 percent by 2018 for people buying insurance through exchanges, the Congressional Budget Office estimates, and more than that in subsequent years. And the CBO estimates it will wind up costing — not saving — the government almost $200 billion over the next 10 years. (Bloomberg explains how.)

Trump’s decision comes after three high-profile failed GOP repeal-and-replace efforts in Congress. The White House argues the subsidies are illegal, because they are not appropriated by Congress. House Republicans sued the Obama administration hoping to stop the payments.

A court sided with the House GOP, but agreed to leave the subsidies in place until a government appeal could be heard. The Trump administration, however, decided to drop the appeal, thereby ending the payments.

In practical terms, though, this will hurt real people, many of whom are in Trump-won states. Will they accept the legal argument that the process was flawed, and Congress has to fix it, even if the man they voted for had the power to keep more money in their pockets?

Trump’s move came a day after he took yet another step to undermine Obamacare by signing an executive order allowing groups of small businesses and associations to band together to buy health insurance.

That could draw younger, healthier people away from the exchanges. It might give younger people a discount for cut-rate coverage, but it would likely drive up the price of premiums for Americans who need care.

That’s not all the Trump administration has done that could pull the rug out from under the ACA — it has also shortened the sign-up period for health care; closed the federal exchange on Sundays; and cut the budget for marketing efforts, including ending advertising to urge sign ups.

Cutting subsidies is a move long feared by health care advocates. Trump has teased doing it for months.

Back in April, he told TheWall Street Journal he was thinking about it, and perhaps revealed why:

“What I think should happen — and will happen — is the Democrats will start calling me and negotiating,” Trump told the paper.

The Journal noted that he continually came back to subsidies, and called out Democratic leaders Chuck Schumer of New York and Nancy Pelosi of California.

“Schumer should be calling me up and begging me to help him save Obamacare,” Trump said. “He should be calling me and begging me to help him save Obamacare, along with Nancy Pelosi.”

Recently, Schumer and Pelosi appeared ready to work with Trump. The president sided with them over leaders of his own party about a three-month extension on the debt ceiling, which is set to need to be raised again in early- to mid-December.

Republicans worried that he was falling into the arms of “Chuck and Nancy,” but Trump appears to be trying to carve out a third path for himself — dismissing Republicans and brow beating Democrats, hoping they will come to him on bended knee.

But Democrats have some leverage — without their votes, it will be difficult for Republicans to keep the government open or raise the debt ceiling on their own. That would risk a government shutdown and a default of U.S. debts because the country essentially couldn’t make its minimum payments.

And “Chuck and Nancy” don’t appear ready to kneel.

“Sadly, instead of working to lower health costs for Americans, it seems President Trump will singlehandedly hike Americans’ health premiums,” Schumer and Pelosi said in a joint statement. “It is a spiteful act of vast, pointless sabotage leveled at working families and the middle class in every corner of America. Make no mistake about it, Trump will try to blame the Affordable Care Act, but this will fall on his back and he will pay the price for it.”

Schumer later told reporters. “Unless our Republican colleagues act,” he said, “the American people will know exactly where to place the blame when their premiums shoot up, and when millions lose coverage.”

The message is clear, and it doesn’t sound like begging from Democrats, who are still smarting from Trump’s apparent backing away on immigration. Democrats thought they had a kind of agreement in principle on legalizing children brought to the U.S. illegally with President Trump — until he submitted a list of demands Democrats found too odious (that included the building of the border wall).

But, pointing to looming spending negotiations in December, Schumer also said with some optimism, “We’re going to have a very good opportunity to get this done in a bipartisan way, if we can’t get it done sooner.”

It now may be up to like-minded congressional Democratic and Republican negotiators to find a bipartisan solution, because it’s tough to negotiate with someone who seems unconcerned about the fallout of his decisions.

Copyright 2017 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

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83346http://wfpl.org/trump-pushes-obamacare-to-detonation-forges-path-away-from-gop-democrats/How Trump Dismantling Obamacare Could Affect Kentuckianshttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/893wfplnews/~3/bmyv5PPE4DY/
Fri, 13 Oct 2017 20:47:05 +0000http://wfpl.org/?p=83336Trump announced Thursday that he planned to cut off payments that help insurers provide coverage to low-income Americans.

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Jon Huffman is an actor, and doesn’t have health insurance through an employer. For the past few years, he’s bought his coverage on Healthcare.gov – and before that Kynect.

And he’s one of the millions of Americans that could ultimately be affected by President Donald Trump’s announcement Thursday that he’ll end the federal government’s payments to insurance companies to subsidize health coverage for some low- and middle-income people.

The Democrats ObamaCare is imploding. Massive subsidy payments to their pet insurance companies has stopped. Dems should call me to fix!

When the Affordable Care Act was passed in 2010, it was just in time for 62-year-old Huffman. He’d once had insurance through an actor’s union, but didn’t use it when he was young and healthy. But in 2013, he started feeling a sharp pain in his stomach. He held off on going to the doctor, but in 2014 finally got insurance through Kynect and saw a professional.

Courtesy Jon Huffman

Jon Huffman

“Then two months later, I was diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer,” Huffman said. “[The insurance coverage] came just in the nick of time for me.”

One of the reasons Huffman can afford this health coverage is because of a subsidy. When he files his taxes every year, he gets money back to help him pay for his insurance. Huffman qualifies because his income is less $48,240 a year.

But in addition to these direct subsidies for people like Huffman, the federal government also gives insurance companies a chunk of money to help cover the cost of insuring people who make less than about $30,000 a year.

This money paid to the insurance companies brings down the amount enrollees have to pay every time they go to the doctor – called a copay – and the limit they have to reach before insurance kicks in – called a deductible.

And these insurance payments – called cost-sharing reductions – are what Trump is taking away. In early 2016, almost 43 percent of Kentuckians who got insurance through the federal marketplace had their deductibles and copays lowered due to the CSRs paid by the government.

Cost-Sharing Reductions

Trump has talked about stopping CSR payments for months; so much so that insurance companies factored in the loss of CSRs when they filed 2018 Healthcare.gov rate increases this summer.

If ObamaCare is hurting people, & it is, why shouldn’t it hurt the insurance companies & why should Congress not be paying what public pays?

Caresource, one of the two insurers left in Kentucky, initially asked the state to increase enrollees’ premiums by almost 20 percent for 2018. But they withdrew that request once it seemed likely the CSR payments would end. Now, the company plans to increase premiums by 56 percent next year.

For Huffman, the effect of all this will likely be a wash. While his monthly payment of $280 will likely increase, the federal government will have to give him a larger tax subsidy to compensate.

The people it’ll really affect will be those that don’t qualify for a subsidy because they earn too much. For a family of four, that income limit is around $98,000. For these people, monthly premiums can cost thousands of dollars.

If this happens, there would be fewer people getting insurance through the exchanges. This would mean fewer people paying those increased premiums to insurers, which could lead insurance companies to leave the market altogether. This could collapse the individual market.

This scares Jon Huffman. Colon cancer is aggressive and spreads fast. Every six months he has to go back to get checked that it’s still gone.

“All the treatment, the subsequent check-ups, is expensive,” he said. “There’s no way I could have afforded it without the [Affordable Care Act].”

But if the market altogether went away? That’d be another scenario for Huffman.

“I could lose [insurance] and not have it next year,” he said. “And if I don’t, I probably won’t get another colonoscopy. I probably wait til’ I can get Medicare before I can get more health care and keep my fingers crossed.”

But the end of CSRs isn’t likely to happen by January 1, when insurance companies’ new rates go into effect. These CSR payments are actually required in the Affordable Care Act. Several states, including Kentucky, have already said they plan to file lawsuits. That would mean years in court to determine the future of the individual market created by the Affordable Care Act.

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83336http://wfpl.org/trump-dismantling-obamacare-affect-kentuckians/Economists Predict Deficit, Clearing Way For Bevin Budget Cutshttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/893wfplnews/~3/82nmYbUnRHY/
Fri, 13 Oct 2017 20:40:26 +0000http://wfpl.org/?p=83343A panel of economists has voted to officially reduce the prediction of how much money Kentucky will bring in this year, forecasting a $155 million deficit.

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A panel of economists has voted to officially reduce the prediction of how much money Kentucky will bring in this year.

The move means Gov. Matt Bevin now has the authority to make budget cuts to fill an estimated $155 million deficit.

On Friday, the panel predicted the deficit would be slightly smaller–$155.6 million–because the state brought in more tax money than expected since August.

But University of Kentucky economics professor Chris Bollinger pushed for the group to keep its “pessimistic” forecast of the state and national economy.

“What we were concerned with in August—and what most of us are still concerned with…is the assumptions about policy changes in Washington that seem, how can I put this politely, unlikely,” Bollinger said.

The group predicted political fighting would continue to stymie Congress and consumers and businesses would react negatively.

The panel of economists was scheduled to officially revise the estimate in December, but Bevin’s budget director, John Chilton, asked the economists to do so this week, clearing the way for Bevin to make a budget reduction plan.

Chilton said that even though the new predicted shortfall is smaller than the one from August, Bevin’s proposed cuts could mimic the 17.4 percent initially floated last month.

Kentucky had a $138.5 million revenue shortfall at the end of the most recent fiscal year — the eighth shortfall in the last 14 years. Officials blamed underwhelming growth from sales and income tax returns.

Kentucky Attorney General Andy Beshear says he plans to sue President Donald Trump over his plan to repeal subsidies that help people afford health insurance under Obamacare.

Trump announced Thursday that he planned to cut off the payments, which help insurers provide coverage to low-income Americans. That includes more than half of the roughly 88,000 Kentuckians who signed up for insurance through Obamacare.

“All of us will see our health care premiums increase if the federal government breaks its word,” Beshear said in a video announcement.

“Ultimately these companies are going to pass on the costs of the federal government’s broken promises to you and me.”

The subsidies help people who earn below 250 percent of the federal poverty level pay for out-of-pocket costs like deductibles and co-pays.

According to the progressive Kentucky Center for Economic Policy, just over half of Kentuckians who got insurance through the federal health exchange qualified for the subsidies during this year’s enrollment period.

Calling the payments a “bailout of insurance companies” Trump said the policy under President Obama’s administration “skirted the law to prop up a broken system.”

The Congressional Budget Office estimated that eliminating the subsidies would result in premiums rising 20 percent in 2018 and lead more insurers to stop offering plans in parts of the country.

Democrats have accused Trump of sabotaging the law, though Beshear said the lawsuit “isn’t about the president at all.”

“It’s about Kentuckians deserving health care that they can afford and the federal government keeping its word,” Beshear said.

“In the end, this action is going to harm them. It doesn’t matter if they’re a Democrat or Republican, it doesn’t matter who they voted for, they deserve affordable health care.”

Beshear will be joining Democratic attorneys general from California, Massachusetts and Connecticut who are also planning to sue Trump over the move.

In a conference call, the officials said they plan to file the lawsuit in federal court in California.

Arguing that Trump violated provisions in the Affordable Care Act and the Administrative Procedures Act, the attorneys general are attempting to block Trump’s move and force the administration to continue making payments while the lawsuit is pending.